Riverside, CA – Today, Amazon announced plans to open a new air gateway at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, CA. Amazon has been an active member of the Inland Empire business community for several years, creating more than 15,000 jobs in the area. Amazon is growing its investment in the community with a gateway for their Prime Air planes at the March Air Reserve Base to supplement current and ongoing operations at the Ontario International Airport.
“We are excited to bring our Amazon Air operation to KRIV so we can continue to ensure we have the capacity to delight our customers,” said Sarah Rhoads, Director of Amazon Air.
Amazon Air currently operates out of 20 airports across the United States, with Riverside opening later this year. The new operation will include daily flights, an onsite facility to sort packages bound for their next destination, and the creation of hundreds of new jobs.
Amazon’s first branded aircraft, Amazon One, took to the skies in 2016. Since that time, Amazon has leased 37 additional aircraft, opened 20 air gateways, and will open a central air hub at KCVG in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area.
In 2012, we opened our doors in California with a fulfillment center in San Bernardino. Since then, we’ve launched nine additional fulfillment centers and other large-scale operations in San Bernardino and Riverside counties – known as the Inland Empire. The investment “moved through inland outlets like local hair salons, restaurants, industrial supply firms, and grocery stores; generating a secondary impact totaling $2.7 billion. Combined, this two step process meant that Amazon had a $4.7 billion economic impact on the Inland Empire from 2012-2016 with $1.95 billion created in 2016 alone,” according to John Husing, Ph.D., chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership.
The number of Amazon employees in this region grew from 2,700 in 2012 to more than 15,000 in 2016. Our investment in the Inland Empire increased employment in the region, creating an estimated 34,600 additional jobs in the same period.
